the ride home is what it is.

very much a primitive time travel excursion .. being shoved back through the continuum to end up 9 hours in the past.

it’s a lot to wrangle with, but seems easier to handle with family on board instead of how much more difficult it used to be so clustered as such when they were younger.

waiting for me when i walked in at home in tucson was a post office notice, my raincoat mailed from france had arrived home the exact same day i did.

and consequently, not a cloud in the sky here.

fires rage.

home sweat home

home sweet home.

time to return . .

up at 6:30 … assemble the unassembled

creak over to the train station caravan style by walking .. some bags are ceasing to function .. wheels stick and fabric frayed and threatening to give  .. cobble stones ratcheting up the erosion of such .. meanwhile, the sun is pissed off it can’t add its haphazard swelter this early in the day … our clacking bag wheels sound like they mock the notion, cackling at the solar impotence that would crush us if attempted with a late check-out attached

in the station at 7:50 … an early mark i can live with .. but am tempted to stop for coffee to up the stakes

but won’t this time … i am played out for now

… on board by 8:03

hit madrid .. meet up with estella there at the station and reassemble some extra stuff

as fernando’s right hand man, she has been instructed to meet us wth a ton of wondrous debris … a slew of giant posters boasting of the ‘alegrias’ album … a box of vinyl of the same .. fistfuls of cds of the same too … then a variety of other ‘eureka’ release … a bunch of t-shirts from his label and cloth bags for whatever .. a johnny cash album .. and a classic paco de lucia .. both vnyl … and then a massive vinyl box set of “the history of flamenco”

and its too much … that much history should not fly .. but we stuff it all in somehow somewhere like the game it is

and then we send poor estella away with the leftovers

.. meanwhile i stash that stunning new guitar the perez brothers made for me in a carry-on sack so then to cram more stuff in the empty hard shell guitar case.

then head to the airport

2 cabs for all this caravan muck a luck

damn .. i am 20 euros shy of paying for both cabs .. and some guy who acts like he works here at the airport is piling our bags onto a cart as if to assist … no wait .. he does not work here .. stop that .. go away .. shuffle around for a way to pay the 2^nd cab .. and then the danish credit card of my missus comes into play and saves the day

ok .. 2 carts loaded up … but of all the problems i have had in europe just flying with a carry-on size bag i check and a guitar i get hell for when insisting taking on board … american airlines and the 2 million miles i hace flown with them is very understanding of our massive load and doesn’t even wince …  6 bags .. some weighing a ton .. and 2 guitars to carry on board .. not a problem .. the kids with their back packs .. sure

so we drop our heap at the ticket counter

and head to the gate

exactly out of euros now  ..

and then a needed stop at the iberia lounge for idiots like me that fly too much … the whole family lands in there like gypsies of folk lore .. we camp out by the free food spread that is cornucopia-ish .. and i fit in a speed shower since its already been a trampled travel day to get here

a brief 20 some minutes here and so then to the plane

on board

in the middle section of 3 connected seats with one exit row seat for alternating parents

not bad

the kids fight just a little …

not bad

on board the flight there is a movie called “country strong”

not bad … for 35,000 feet

an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of “crazy heart”

my 9 year old girl loves it

the stars do an impressive job of singing … and there is jimmy lauderdale in the band on screen and it always feels good to see jim do anything he does.

so

that is that

connect in dallas … again to the club for a quick remedial visit

and now flinging home  … temp in dallas was 101 … tucson 102

i’m ready for it … the ramp off the plane felt baked and right by me

got the girls upgraded  on the last leg …  the dudes are cramped back in coach churning out this last crimple of journal … the boy sleeps and barely fits in the 2 seats we have and his sprawl is shoving me out a bit

i order a black coffee and a corona

when i finally put this thing down .. and ignore the book i brought along .. i catch the magnificence out the window … as if i almost forgot the sensational wonder of time travel like this …  back into the past the plane shoves us, but out the window i notice the captain has decided on skimming the tops of the clouds like they are the ocean they once were way down below. . . the angle of the hot sun imposes a grand specter of shadowing the fluffy cloud splotch to make them even more wave like with streaks of sunlight  that billow up enough to impress and inspire … it is a sea of accumulated cumulous we ride

and that grace adds nicely to this dream

-  – - —  –

if you have read any of this 54 day journal.. .

some day you can tell me what really happened

it would be great to have counter journals of people on the same day who went or tried to go to the shows written about within these jots

stick it in the comments slot here in journal land

until then

and again

the en d

waking up is already an event.

we need to vacate in an hour. packing it up for caravan haul.

kids, guitars, bags.

then the improvised plan of escape.

cab it to puerto de la santa maria, then the train to cordoba instead of madrid to spend the last night accordingly. joan sees us off.

and fernando is there to welcome us back in cordoba. the dream team.

dump the baggage at the hotel across the street and then walk the day away with fernanado and take in one last splendor of the city here i love. buy some school clothes for the kids. boots of spanish leather for my oldest daughter who couldn’t be with us. meet up with the singer that goes by “la negra”, amparine, back at ‘nando’s house.

then we head out for a last minute invite to a cajon performance and i get the history of the thing. its only been in here in flamenco land for about 30 years, delivered from its origins in peru. and handed over at first to paco de lucia, who then by destiny introduced in to all of spain.

in closing, a fellow gets up to introduce the new collapsible travel cajon he just invented and we wish thøger was here to see it.

then some dinner outdoors again. its gotten late. midnight, and we return to the hotel for the last night here.

and that’s about it.

th eend